Weekend Reading on Women's Representation December 29, 2017

By Cynthia Richie Terrell
on December 29, 2017

Dear friends and allies,

Barbara Lee, president and founder of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, penned a terrific piece that reflects what so many of us are thinking "We don;t need another Year of the Woman. We need progress for women every year" and I would add a special emphasis that we need progress for all women every year:

Another year, she might have just raged; instead, she ran for his seat. On November 7, Ashley Bennett, a political newcomer, unseated John Carman, a career politician.

She wasn’t alone. One year after the Women’s March, a new generation of women will be marching into office as newly-elected members of school boards, city councils and state legislatures. Their unlikely victories were made possible by thousands more women who organized, phone banked and drove their neighbors to the polls.

Danica Roem, who won a Virginia House of Delegates seats in a race against GOP incumbent Robert Marshall, is greeted by supporters as she prepares to give her victory speech. The Washington Post / Getty Images

Something big is stirring in American politics, and it’s only beginning: Since last November, women’s organizations have been inundated with a record number of inquiries from potential first-time candidates. Political observers across the country are predicting another “Year of the Woman” in 2018 — which is what the then-mostly male pundits called the 1992 election in which Americans, with the sexist treatment of Anita Hill still fresh in their minds, propelled 28 new women into Congress.

A quarter century later, that “Year of the Woman” proved to be more of a blip than a bellwether. We need much, much more because, to quote the trailblazing Senator Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., women aren’t “a fad, fancy, or a year,” but progress in women’s representation has essentially plateaued.

This time, women can't and won’t just ride a wave; they’re building a movement.

Over the last eleven months, women have filled town hall meetings, organized rallies and, most importantly, signed up to run for office. More than 22,000 women have contacted EMILY’s List to join the organization’s incubator program for pro-choice, Democratic candidates. (During the last election cycle, that number was less than 1,000.)

And, in June, the newly launched Republican Women2Women PAC helped push Georgia’s first Republican congresswoman to victory in a hotly contested special election.

Political organizers aren’t the only ones welcoming the prospect of more women running for office. Findings from Opportunity Knocks, a recent study conducted by The Barbara Lee Family Foundation, affirm that women candidates have a number of key advantages with voters in 2018 — among them, their status as political outsiders at a time when many Americans are frustrated with the status quo. Though party affiliation remains a preeminent indicator of how people will vote, gender matters too, and the findings suggest that women on both sides of the aisle are either leading or making up ground when it comes to issues that matter most to voters.

The 2018 election cycle will likely feature more women running for office than ever before; next November is an unprecedented opportunity to narrow the gender gap and ensure that women have a seat at the table — and at the head of the table — now and for generations to come.

That is not just significant for women, but for the progress their votes as elected officials will make possible on a wide range of issues, from education to healthcare to civil rights. However, just because change is possible doesn’t mean that it’s inevitable: In the months ahead, women and men who care about women in elected office all need to be activists by recruiting women on both sides of the aisle to run, and supporting them throughout their campaigns. It will take our collective energy, resources, creativity, and courage to harness this moment and build an unstoppable movement.

Let’s make sure 2018 is remembered as not just a year for women, but as the year that women turned the tide.

Indeed, together we must make 2018 "the year that women turned the tide..."

While the centennial of suffrage in the US looms ever closer, women in the UK celebrated that milestone by filling the London Underground according to this story in iNews.

Women artists will be highlighted throughout 2018 with a year-long exhibition on the London Underground to mark 100 years of women’s suffrage. The Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed on 6 February 2018, giving women over the age of 30 who met certain property requirements the right to vote. Women under the age of 30 had to wait another decade before being enfranchised. Transport for London’s public art programme has commissioned women artists from across the globe to mark the 100 year anniversary of this historic legislation passing.

There was one poem that stood out from last week's missive that I will share again in case some of you missed it:

Equality and Vision

Self-respecting we stand, Where once we did hunch over With guilt, second-prize ribbons and a Countertop lined with ingredients to cook.

We stand tall in the glow of securing the Right to vote, as we step toward visions of Our equality with the muscular forces – Let’s see the vision soon without wearing glasses, Even within home walls where cameras do not go.

There is still work to do, as we strive for Equal pay and we are haunted by the Memories of physical and emotional abuse, From past years, last months and this morning.

There are bodies that choose to chain us down.

We speak up louder with each day that passes, Striving to reach a volume that cracks windows of Disregard. We do not pass on opportunities to Honor and represent the women who Have brought us to the path we travel today.

We thank these women, we step into their footprints, and We stretch the size of their shoes a little more with Each day that passes. I hope that we honor them well.